The Wild, Shy Kind
by Mara Greengrass
Summary: [Magiranger] Four times Urara and Hikaru didn't say "I love you" and one time they did.


Notes: Boy, I really wish the show had given us a little more of their interaction before springing the marriage on us...

Watching Kai fling himself at Tsubasa and try to pound his brother into the ground, Hikaru chuckled quietly.

"I don't find them amusing," Urara said, crossing her arms.

"Oh..." Hikaru looked at her. "It's not their wrangling that's amusing. It's how much Kai reminds me of Blagel."

She looked at her youngest brother, then back at Hikaru. "Ah," she said dubiously.

"Blagel wasn't always my teacher, you know. He was once a young hothead as well."

"He was?"

"Oh yes. I recall that the first time I met him, he had just challenged Magiel to a duel over certain policies of Magitopia concerning humans and their affairs."

"Challenged Magiel? Oh dear," she said, eyes wide.

"She refused the duel, of course. But Blagel was stubborn as well as courageous and he eventually won, as he always did, and Magitopia changed for the first time in centuries." He turned to look directly at Urara. "It's how I know that you will win as well. You are all truly Blagel and Miyuki's children."

Eyes bright, she smiled up at him. "Thank you."

Hikaru resolved to tell more stories of Blagel to his children, especially if it made Urara smile.

************************************

The tea was exactly the perfect temperature that Hikaru liked it. The cookies she'd baked earlier were precisely cool enough to eat, while still warm enough to taste right out of the oven. Everything was arranged just so and Urara took a moment to mentally thank her mother for every lesson she'd ever gotten in the kitchen, before carrying the tray into the other room and placing it in front of Hikaru.

Hikaru, head bent over the volume of history he'd been studying for the past four hours without a break, turned toward the tray, then looked up, smiling. Urara's breath caught. "I thought you might need a snack," she managed to say, sounding almost normal.

"Thank you," Hikaru said, dipping his head.

"You're welcome."

Looking over her shoulder as she left, she saw him reach for a cookie, still smiling broadly.

Checking that she was alone, Urara skipped down the hallway back toward the kitchen, her heart lighter than it had been in weeks.

************************************

Hikaru looked over at Urara, still staring the flat tray of water she'd been trying to use as an alternate divination tool. He hadn't wanted to interfere if she could figure it out herself, but she was clearly reaching the end of her patience after most of a day, scowling at the water as if it had personally insulted her.

He strolled down the steps toward the table. "Urara?"

"What do you want?" she snapped, before freezing and looking up at him wide-eyed. "I'm sorry. I—"

"It's okay," he said, touching her arm. "I understand how frustrating it is when a spell doesn't work the way you expect."

She took a careful breath. "Could you please help me with this divination?"

"I would be happy to help." Hikaru wasn't sure why, but seeing her relax at his words made him feel warm inside.

************************************

The idiot. Urara paused, deciding that even inside her own head, she had to be specific, because she was _surrounded_ by idiots. Most of them related to her.

She took a deep breath as she sat by Hikaru's bedside, watching him sleep off his injuries. Rubbing her arm, she was grateful once again for Tsubasa's skill with potions that meant she was dealing only with an ache and Hikaru would survive his own wounds.

Whether he would survive _her_ once he awoke was a separate matter, she thought, staring harder at him.

"I can feel you looking at me," Hikaru said quietly, without opening his eyes.

"Good. Can you feel me being angry at you?"

His eyes shot open in apparent surprise at her sharp tone. "I can now."

She crossed her arms, suppressing the wince as it pulled at the healing wound. "Then you're awake enough to tell me what you thought you were doing."

Blinking a few times, he seemed to be trying to figure out what she was talking about. "Fighting Infershia?" he finally said, with less than his usual certainty.

"I meant the part where you went after the demon without telling us where you were going."

"I—"

"Forcing me to leave my family to fight the _other_ monsters alone so that I could figure out where you were and save you."

He opened his mouth and then closed it again.

"And by save you I mean arrive in time to see you nearly die." This time he was smart enough to not even open his mouth, proving that even Heavenly Saints could be taught. She went on. "And attempt a last-ditch spell that I wasn't certain would work but was just enough to bring both of us home."

He waited. "I'm sorry."

"For which part?"

Definitely proving he could be taught, he stopped to think before answering. "For frightening you."

"And?"

"For not trusting you and your family enough to bring you with me."

She relaxed against the chair with a sigh. "Forgiven." They sat in a more comfortable silence for long enough that she thought he might be falling asleep until his eyes opened.

He turned toward her, brows furrowed. "I didn't realize..."

"Realize what?"

"That disappointing someone could be more painful than being beaten nearly to death."

"Clearly you didn't grow up in a family like mine."

He laughed aloud and she couldn't help but smile back at him.

************************************

It seemed like days after that final battle before Hikaru could find time alone with Urara. Maybe it _was_ days. It was difficult to tell, as everything was blurry with exhaustion and fading panic and returning energy and having been dead for some indeterminate amount of time.

But finally Urara's mother and father and siblings were all somewhere else and it was just Hikaru on a sitting room couch with Urara. His instincts told him to play it cool, dismiss the danger they'd been in, but he liked to think he'd learned _something_ from the Ozu family.

"Come here," he said, pulling Urara against his side. "I'm so glad we're alive."

"Me too." She turned, flinging her arms around him and they sat, soaking in each other's presence.

"You're braver than me," he said eventually, whispering into her hair.

"What?" She tensed, squirming in his arms.

Hikaru relaxed his hold slightly so she could rest more comfortably against his chest, but didn't let go. This needed to be said, but he wasn't sure he could look in her eyes while he said it. "I've never doubted my confidence or my courage. Until I met you."

"Hika—"

"Please, let me finish." She subsided and he took a breath. "When I met you and your family, I learned what true courage was. I learned what it was like to have something to lose other than my life."

Urara made a small sad noise against his chest and held him tighter.

"I didn't realize how terrifying it is to feel this way about someone. And you with your fear of frogs and your parents possibly lost and your siblings in constant danger, you kept going. How could I do less?" Hikaru was surprised to realize his arms were trembling around her and that should have bothered him, given how much he hated showing weakness. Perhaps if it was anyone other than his darling Urara, his darling wife, it would have. But she already knew him better than anyone ever had and she forgave him.

Lifting her head off his chest, she smiled up at him. "Are you done?"

"Er...yes."

Leaning up, Urara brushed her lips across Hikaru's. "I love you too."

-end-


End file.
